60GB iPods soon?

[headbrace]

Macworld Story here

Looks like we may well be getting some updated iPods quite soon with bigger drives. Also, there are rumours going round of special in-car accessories and connections for them, along with even a wireless model for use with Airport Express.

Any thoughts?

[Jonny M]

Enjoy the battery depleting ability of a wireless connection

[Stoo]

hehe my pda does about 3-4 hours on the battery.. then you plug in the wifi card.. hmm enjoy your 50 minutes of wifi

[directhex]

ipod is already one of the worst players on the market for battery life, so...

and honestly, who gives a **** about 60Gb? So self-righteous apple owners can pay ten thousand pounds filling it?

how about supporting a few more audio formats instead, or fixing the heating -> splitting defect? steve jobs' "we rock, we're so great, we don't need to support other formats cos when apple's on top it stays there until the end of time" comments don't bode well for apple aiming at a consumer-friendly device with, say, wma or ogg support

[Agent]

Enjoy the battery depleting ability of a wireless connection

It could bring music sharing to a new level though...

"hey, can i have that album"

*yoink*

"thanks"

[Aaron]

WMA support would be good in a perfect world but it isn't going to happen for two reasons:

1. Apple would have to license the format from Microsoft. That will cost money.
2. WMA is notoriously bad when it comes to how much processing power is needed to decode the signal. Greater CPU strain means shorter battery life. That's why most smartphones only support MP3 - it's the least computationally complex of the codecs.

[directhex]

1. Apple would have to license the format from Microsoft. That will cost money.

no more than they pay for their AAC license - and they pay a full license for every free download of itunes etc, so they're no strangers to the idea of license costs

1. WMA is notoriously bad when it comes to how much processing power is needed to decode the signal. Greater CPU strain means shorter battery life. That's why most smartphones only support MP3 - it's the least computationally complex of the codecs.

most other players can do the more computationally intensive codecs (ogg, wma) at reduced battery life, and players such as the iriver or karma will play ogg for longer than the ipod will do mp3 or aac.

perhaps if apple spent a little less time with breakout and a little more wth algorithms, then the players would have the required support

or perhaps they wouldn't have the most gappy of gap-filled gap between tracks

[pickers]

Got to admit that apple have to do something more than just upping the capacity. I've got a 15Gb iPod and I can't say it is the dream product everyone thinks. The battery life is rubbish, they appear to have made it from the least robust materials ever so the thing scratches to hell (even though I keep it in a little felt bag! Just one touch seems to put a new scratch in it) and I've found the firmware less than stable, oh and the gaps in the playback annoy me intensly! Plus the screen is rather poor too, the refresh rate is terrible and it isn't very sharp. They are trading on it being a fashion item, but I'm afraid that it needs to pull up its socks if it is going to stay on top, as Rio have some mighty fine products and sony are readying a jukebox too...phew...rant over (sorry had to restore my iPod today after it corrupted itself during a firmware update and am very annoyed)

[directhex]

Got to admit that apple have to do something more than just upping the capacity. I've got a 15Gb iPod and I can't say it is the dream product everyone thinks. The battery life is rubbish, they appear to have made it from the least robust materials ever so the thing scratches to hell (even though I keep it in a little felt bag! Just one touch seems to put a new scratch in it) and I've found the firmware less than stable, oh and the gaps in the playback annoy me intensly! Plus the screen is rather poor too, the refresh rate is terrible and it isn't very sharp. They are trading on it being a fashion item, but I'm afraid that it needs to pull up its socks if it is going to stay on top, as Rio have some mighty fine products and sony are readying a jukebox too...phew...rant over (sorry had to restore my iPod today after it corrupted itself during a firmware update and am very annoyed)

half those rants sound like you really should've gotten a rio karma - gapless playback plus long battery life...

[Tom]

WMA support would be good in a perfect world but it isn't going to happen for two reasons:

1. Apple would have to license the format from Microsoft. That will cost money.
2. WMA is notoriously bad when it comes to how much processing power is needed to decode the signal. Greater CPU strain means shorter battery life. That's why most smartphones only support MP3 - it's the least computationally complex of the codecs.

lol thats quite an ironic quote considering THE 'smartphone' (ie ms smartphones) WANT you to use wma....i have an spv e200 and you can only use WMA as ringtones, not mp3

[XiXora]

and the e200 dont last a day does it? ( with use... )

[Butuz]

My boss has got the I-rivier 40gb and its awesome. Plays anything, the battery lasts for ages, feels robust and well made, and plug it in and it appears as a hard drive on your PC, no wonky software getting in the way of copying your music over.

The way i see it - apple created the MP3 player all kudos to them, but theyve lost it now, who on earth would want to pay so much money for a big disk ipod? Theyre ripoffs! Apple started it, people like I-river are going to finish it.

Butuz

[Grey M@a]

would love to know why everyone has problems with the iPod battery life of a few hours, mine goes for days without a re-charge and its always on at work. I use mine as a portable HD at work, just whack it in the usb port and bobs your aunties brothers dogs owners mate.......... Never had a problem with this one since it was replaced due to the theiving gits at TNT nicking no less that 3 units :/ I agree they are stupidly over priced but lets just say I paid a fraction of the off the shelf cost for it Gotta love working in education facilities vat and tax exempt \o/

[directhex]

The way i see it - apple created the MP3 player all kudos to them

rio created the first portable mp3 player, the rio pmp300. archos created the first portable hard disk player, the archos jb6000.

[Butuz]

Yes but they were crap. Apple brought portable Mp3 to the masses with what (was) a superb player but it has now been eclipsed.

Butuz

[directhex]

what amuses me is how cocky apple are. they haven't learnt a thing from their descent from 100% of home computers to 3%. they say they aren't bothering with wma because it's some minor format and they're the market leaders, as if they are guaranteed to maintain that position forever & ever as they did with home computers.